A TV White Space Spectrum Sensing Device with Robust Sensing Performance and Attractive Physical Features

摘要

Considerable challenges need to be overcome before spectrum sensing can be widely used to identify spectrum opportunities in the TV bands. To fulfill the strict sensing requirement regulated by FCC, a comprehensive sensing algorithm, which produces high SNR process gain and maintains sensing robustness under real sensing conditions, is strongly required. Furthermore, the superior physical features, such as small size and light-weight, are also required for further commercialization. To the best knowledge of us, no success has ever been announced in developing a sensing prototype that fulfills both FCC required sensing capability and above mentioned features. In this paper, we introduce a recently developed sensing device for Japanese digital TV signals of Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting-Terrestrial (ISDB-T). The sensing device operates at the whole Japanese UHF TV band (470-710 MHz) and can reliably detect the presence of ISDB-T signals at FCC required level of -114 dBm in a 6MHz channel. Moreover, the sensing device has well-designed physical features for real applications. To evaluate its sensing performance, both laboratory tests and field tests are performed. Laboratory tests are performed under the conditions with considering impacts of adjacent channel interference, frequency offset and uncertain noise. In field tests, the sensing device is attached in a vehicle and is checked for its capability to identify the presence of ISDB-T signals at some fixed locations and also during movement of the vehicle.